How Do You Measure Pollution in Denmark? Apparently with Google Maps

Google Street View cars are roaming around Copenhagen’s streets measuring air pollution. Yes, you heard that right. Apparently, aside from mapping cities all over the globe, Google cars are also measuring the levels of pollution in Denmark’s capital.

Copenhagen is the first European city to cooperate with the gigantic multinational technology company in order to check the quality of air in the city, opening the way for other countries around the world to do the same.

“The environment, people and quality of life are a top priority in Copenhagen’s development, and by co-operating with one of the world’s strongest tech firms, we are working on new methods to measure the city’s air quality,” said Ninna Hedeager, the city’s deputy mayor for technical and environmental issues, adding that, “this will bring Copenhagen to the fore in the struggle to secure the best possible air quality and give citizens information that will allow them to cycle down the least polluted routes.”

In order to collect results regarding the levels of pollution, special air-quality measuring equipment is attached to the Google Street View cars, which at the moment measure air-pollution in three areas around the capital of Denmark.

Though Copenhagen is the first city in Europe to have started a partnership with Google in order to measure pollution levels, Google cars have already been used for this purpose in various US states. However, according to new mobility.news, Roel Vermeulen – professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Exposome Science at the Institute of Risk Assessment Sciences at Utrecht University – has stated that, “European cities are smaller and have narrow streets so, results are expected to be different.”

The Copenhagen authorities, along with Google, aim to measure air-quality on every street around the city until they have an overview of air-pollution in each neighbourhood, so it seems that the Google Street View cars will be around for a while.